Armour Exhaust Pipes

Bill Thomas

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Oh Come on Phil, What do you think they will say !! It has always been "Pot Luck " Vincents are like that, I have found Armours good to deal with, I bought a Stainless Silencer off them a short while ago, The Chrome one has a baffle in it !!. I thought it was a little long, It was not too loud, I have took a few inches off it, Now it is louder !! But that is my fault ! Cheers Bill.
 

Bill Thomas

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Hello Phil, Ask them if you can take your bike down there in a van, Not sure if they have them in stock, They have offered to do Special stuff for me befor going to the chroming, Good Luck, Bill.
 

timetraveller

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Going back a few threads when various adjustments with regards to the positioning of the heads and thus the exhaust port threads was being discussed; several years ago I was helping a chum, new to Vincents, who was having trouble fitting his brand new “official” twin exhaust pipes. I went over to help and there was no way that I could make them fit so we put the engine in the back of his car and took that and the exhaust pipes back to the manufacturer and challenged him to fit them. He tried and failed and then said that the thought that it must be a build-up of manufacturing tolerances. So we slackened off the head nut and everything else that needed to be slack to allow the heads to be rotated etc. and there was still no way that the pipes could be fitted. The thing to note is that there is almost NO movement possible, certainly not tenths of an inch. Clevtrev’s point about original machining tolerances, exhaust port thread repairs, distortion of the heads after sixty years of use is well made but when pipes do not fit within a half inch to a full inch then it is going to be the pipes, not the engine. It would be good to have David Bowen’s feedback on this as to whether this was a problem during manufacture. My understanding is that the bikes were road tested with each tester using his own set of exhaust pipes and then changing them for new ones prior to the bikes being shipped out to the dealers or customers. This suggests to me that there could not have been a serious problem at the time.
I am using a very unreliable internet connection at the moment and lost the whole of the first version of the earlier (and this) communication. What I had put in the earlier posting, but which was left out of the second version, was that more recently I have heard of people buying Armour pipes which did fit so it is possible that their quality control has now improved. Feedback would be good.
 

Len Matthews

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Many years ago an advertiser in MPH proudly boasted that "Our pipes are guaranteed to fit" Oh really? I wonder how many purchasers found this to be true?
Personally, I recently bought new pipes and silencer from Armours which fitted without difficulty. Even the hole in the lug on the front pipe lined up with hole in the pillion footrest plate-a rare occurrence!
 

Bill Thomas

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
I am not clever enough to work it out, But if the Cyl' Barrel is longer or shorter, And if the owner has fitted some Compression plates, That could make a difference, You can Make! a bit when bending the Flange if you are Lucky, Cheers Bill.
 

BigEd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
VOC Forum Moderator
Hello Phil, Ask them if you can take your bike down there in a van, Not sure if they have them in stock, They have offered to do Special stuff for me before going to the chroming, Good Luck, Bill.
My brother built a Matchless special with the Norton Atlas engine fitted. (AMC made a similar machine, the G15, before they went under.) My brother did lots of mods including turning half the crankshaft through 90° so that it fires like a 90° "V" twin. He wanted to make a custom high level exhaust so he bought a set of unplated exhaust pipes from Armour's, cut, shut and welded them to fit his bike and returned them to Armour's for plating.
 

Phil Baker

Well Known and Active Forum User
Non-VOC Member
I'm going to take the pipes I have down to Armours tomorrow (if they have stock) and compare them as far as is possible without the engine being present. Might ask to buy pipes (if in stock) on sale or return in case they don't fit. Otherwise, if they bend on site, I'll ask them to bend an extra inch on the short pipe and try that. I'll report back...
 

clevtrev

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
I'm going to take the pipes I have down to Armours tomorrow (if they have stock) and compare them as far as is possible without the engine being present. Might ask to buy pipes (if in stock) on sale or return in case they don't fit. Otherwise, if they bend on site, I'll ask them to bend an extra inch on the short pipe and try that. I'll report back...

You would be better going to Technical Tubes, and save yourself some time. They`re the people who made them.
 
Top